Chapter 21

"MY BOYS."

_Address to the Wives and Children of Confederate Veterans._

I have been often and earnestly requested by "my comrades" to address to you a few words explanatory of the tie which binds me to them and them to me. They tell me, among other things, that you "wonder much, and still the wonder grows," that I should presume to call grave and dignified husbands and fathers "my boys." Having promised to meet their wishes, I must in advance apologize for the egoism which it is quite impossible to avoid, as my own war record is inseparable from that of my comrades.

Does it seem strange to you that I call these bronzed and bearded men "my _boys_?" Ah, friends, in every time-worn face there lives always for me "the light of other days." Memory annihilates the distance between the long-ago and the present.

I seem to see them marching, with brave, bright faces and eager feet, to meet the foe. I hear the distant boom of cannon, growing fainter as they press the retreating enemy. And then, alas! many come back to me mutilated, bleeding, dying, yet with ardor unquenched, repressing moans of anguish that they may listen for the shout of victory: wrestling fiercely with the King of Terrors, not that they fear to die, but because his chill grasp palsies the arm that would fain strike another blow for the right.

I stood among the sick and wounded lying in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, while the magnificent Army of Northern Virginia was passing from the scene of their late glorious victory at Manassas to meet the invaders under McClellan, who were marching upon the Peninsula. Around me lay many sick and wounded men, gathered under the immense roof of a tobacco factory, which covered nearly a whole square. Its windows commanded a full view of the legions passing on both sides.

The scene I can never forget. As the strains of martial music fell upon the summer air, pale, gaunt forms struggled to their feet, feebly but eagerly donned clothes and accoutrements, and, staggering under their weight, crept to the office of the surgeon in charge, piteously begging that they might "get to go on with the boys." Many, too weak to rise, broke into bitter sobs: tears poured from eyes bright with fever or dim with the shadow of death. Passing among these, I was startled to see a patient, whom all had supposed to be dying, sitting up in bed. Stretching his arms toward me, he cried out, "Lady, lady, come here!" He was a boy of sixteen years, one of the glorious Third Alabama, and he begged so hard to be allowed to see "the boys" that I had his bunk drawn up to an open window, supporting him in my arms so that he _could_ see. When his own regiment passed, he tried with faltering breath to cheer, but, failing, waved his feeble hand, gasping out, "_God knows_, I wish I could be with you, boys, but 'pears like the heavenly Master ain't willing."

His comrades passed on. The boy was borne back to his place, whence, in a few hours, he passed beyond all pain and disappointment.

I need not mention here the magnificent record of the army that passed that day the streets of Richmond. The pages of history are ablaze with the glory of it. Not less glorious to me are the records written in my heart of heroic fortitude, patient endurance, sublime resignation. Alas for my poor, worn, shattered, suffering, dying boys! how their souls were tried, _yet never found wanting!_

The fortunes of war led me from the scenes of my first service to rejoin my husband, who had been ordered to the Army of Tennessee. On my journey, and while waiting to be assigned to duty, I lingered for a while among the homes of Southern soldiers. How can I convey to you the impressions there received?

Here lay the main-spring of the valor which then and long afterward astonished the world. In the towns and near the front thousands of women daily ministered to the sick and wounded. When a battle ended, these could soon know the fate of loved ones, perhaps were permitted to nurse them, to attend their dying hour, or--inestimable privilege--reclaim the precious casket which had enshrined a gallant soul. But in many a country home women endured, day after day, crucifixion of the soul, yet heroically, patiently, toiled and prayed on. Startled by flying rumors, tortured by suspense, weary with unwonted labor, they never dreamed of leaving the post of duty or of neglecting the interests confided to their care. No comforter had they save their God, no resource but unwearied prayer.

Memory brings back to me a scene which sadly illustrates the exalted courage and faith of these noble women. I was present one night when, at a plantation home, the family and servants were assembled, as usual, for prayers. The aged father led the worship, but, while praying for the absent sons, two of whom had already fallen in battle, he faltered and ceased. Instantly the clear, sweet voice of the mother was heard as she prayed fervently, not only for the dear ones at the front, but for the holy cause, for _other_ parents, _other_ sons, and for _strength_ to _submit_ to _God's will_.

I have, sitting by the bedside of sick or wounded soldiers, read to them letters from just such homes, breathing lofty courage, full of cheer, although I knew that the hearts of the writers had been almost breaking, the fingers that penned them stiff and trembling with toil hitherto unknown. God bless the women of the South.

If from every wreath that ever adorned the brow of a hero the brightest laurels were plucked, all would not form an offering too resplendent to lay at their feet.

Soon after the battle of Shiloh began my service with the Army of Tennessee. How shall I make you understand, dear friends, how strong, how dear, how imperishable are the ties which bind me to these grand and noble heroes,--the true, brave boys with whom I shared until the bitter end their trials and glory. Heroic souls who bore with equal fortitude and transcendent bravery alike the shock of battle, the pangs of "hope deferred," the untold hardships which soon became their daily portion. Their bleeding feet dyed alike the snows of Georgia and the rocky mountain paths of Tennessee.

As their ranks were decimated by battle, disease, starvation, death, the hearts that were left swelled higher and higher with holy zeal, sublime courage. Night after night, with lagging, unwilling feet, they made the hated retreat.

Day after day the sun shone on those defiant faces as they presented a still unbroken front and hurled themselves again and again against the invaders, contesting every inch of the land they loved.

Ah, the horrors of those latter days, when daily, almost hourly, brought to me ghastly wrecks of manhood, when my ears were always filled with the moans of the dying, or irrepressible agonizing shrieks of those who were undergoing the torture of the surgeon's knife without the blessed aid of chloroform, for that was contraband of war. Do you wonder, then, that I love to call those comrades of mine "my boys"? Whether they served in the Army of Northern Virginia or the Army of Tennessee, they were all alike my comrades. Their precious blood has often dyed my own garments. I have gone down with them to the very gates of death, wrestling with the death angel every step of the way, sometimes only to receive their last sighs as they passed into the valley of the shadow, sometimes permitted to guide their feeble feet once more into the paths of glory.

I have shared their rations, plain but plentiful at first, at the last only a mouldy crust and a bit of rusty bacon. I have been upon an ambulance-train freighted with human agony delayed for hours by rumors of an enemy in ambush. I have fed men hungry with the ravening hunger of the wounded with scanty rations of musty corn-bread; have seen them drink eagerly of foetid water, dipped from the road-side ditches. Yet they bore it all with supreme patience; fretted and chafed, it is true, but only on account of enforced inactivity. I have packed haversacks with marching rations for forty-eight hours, a single corn-dodger split and with only a thin slice of bacon between the pieces. This was a _Confederate sandwich_. And on such food Southern soldiers marched incredible distances, fought desperate battles. The world will never cease to wonder at the unfailing devotion, the magnificent courage, the unparalleled achievements of the Southern armies. Scarcely less admirable is the heroic spirit in which they have accepted defeat; the industry which has hidden the desolation of our land with bountiful harvest, the honesty of purpose which now seeks to restore the constitution framed by our forefathers as it was, the patient yet invincible determination which has driven out tyranny and oppression, and reclaimed for posterity this beautiful Southland, rich with historic memories, made sacred and beautiful by the graves of heroes.

And these are _my boys_--still--always my boys. From the highest places of the land they turn to give me a comrade's greeting. I glory in the renown of these, but just as dear and precious to me is the warm grasp of the toil-hardened hand and the smile which beams upon me from the rugged face of the very humblest of "the boys who wore the gray."

Dear friends, this subject is to me inexhaustible; but I may no longer trespass upon your patience. With loving, reverent hands I have lifted the veil of the past. Let the transcendent glory streaming through penetrate the mask which time and care and sorrow have woven for the faces of my boys, and show you the brave, unfaltering hearts as I know them.